The 10 Weirdest Things People Use Lip Balm For

And you thought putting it on your cuticles was out there.

Ashleigh Austen
WhimnFebruary 25, 20208:01am

You can technically use lip balm to glue on face decals. Image: Unsplash/BillieSource:Whimn

From softening baseball gloves to applying it to horses hooves, turns out it's pretty useful.

I’ve never quite understood why so many people answer with ‘mascara’ when asked about their desert island beauty product.

I mean, in the great scheme of things, if you were stranded on an island ala Tom Hanks in Castaway, wouldn’t you rather something slightly more, I don’t know, useful?

When you think about it, a tube of Maybelline Great Lash isn’t going to get you too far when you consider that you’re up against the elements and need to forage for your own food while spending 100% of your time outside.

Mascara isn't going to help you climb this tree. Image: Unsplash/Emma Dau

Mascara isn't going to help you climb this tree. Image: Unsplash/Emma DauSource:Whimn


Now perhaps I’m coming at this from too rational a point of view, but if I’m going to be deserted on a beach somewhere, I’ll take a tube of lip balm any day.

You see, lip balm literally has millions of uses. Sure, you probably couldn’t start a fire with it (or maybe you could, who knows?) but you certainly could protect your hands from all that wood chopping and kindling collecting.

To continue this hypothetical narrative, if I do happen to be shipwrecked, I’d want the best, and there’s no better than Lanolips 101 Ointment which has literally been voted as ‘The World's Best Lip Balm’ (by The Times UK, not like, The Daily Mail).


The magic of this multipurpose super balm comes from its main ingredients, lanolin. For the uninitiated, lanolin is found in sheep’s wool and mimics human skin oils to hold 400 times its own weight in water, meaning it can deliver moisture back into your skin at the same time.

Back in 2009, Lanolips took lanolin and formulated it into their now cult classic ointment: a balm which isn’t greasy or sticky and provides a 100% natural alternative to common petroleum-based balms.

So convinced was the brand’s founder, Kirsten Carriol, that the balm she created really was multi-purpose, that she made the claim that it had 101 uses – and put it smack bang on the front of the tube.

Apart from the obvious uses like treating chapped lips and hydrating dry cuticles, here are the 10 weirdest ways she suggests that people use the lip balm – and they’ve all been tried and tested.

  2. Soften and break in baseball gloves.
  3. Put on the seal around your fridge or freezer door to make the magnetic strip last longer.
  4. Apply on sides of nose to prevent marks from wearing glasses.
  5. When new shoes hurt, rub lanolin on the heel and back of your shoes so that they don’t chafe.
  6. Use as lubricant grease where corrosion would otherwise be a problem, particularly on stainless steel.
  7. Create a sealed surface on sailboats’ propellers and stern gear to prevent barnacles from adhering.
  8. Soften sticky residue on glass surfaces.
  10. Unstick a stuck zipper.

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